


Daughters of Scars and Loyalty

by Elleth



Category: Legacy of Orïsha - Tomi Adeyemi
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Comfort Sex, Developing Relationship, Devotion, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:03:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22424530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/pseuds/Elleth
Summary: The night before the island, after Zélie falls asleep in Amari's cabin, that is not where the evening ends for either of them.
Relationships: Amari Olúborí/Zélie Adebola
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	Daughters of Scars and Loyalty

Zélie nestles close against me, so close I think I can feel the thrum of her heartbeat. I try not to think of the last time I was this close to someone - dear Binta, soothing me out of a nightmare and falling asleep against me, for that moment without a care in the world. Or so I thought then.

How little I knew, until Father's sword ripped through her. It brings tears to my eyes again, making me feel like the helpless, spoiled princess for a moment, but I've left that girl far behind. 

Binta would be proud of me, I have to trust in that. 

Zélie is proud of me. 

It's not something that I have to trust in, it is something that I know, that she communicated with words and without. She showed me by trying to sit still as I braided the white mane of her hair, and she acquiesced to my fingers in her curls. By confiding in me that her magic was gone after what Father did to her. By staying with me. By falling asleep with me even though I lie awake. By sleeping without screams, right next to me, her sleeping face turned toward me. The thought warms me like the sun, and without thinking, even risking to wake her, I press a kiss to Zélie's forehead.

I love her. 

I love Tzain as well - that revelation came creeping in even before Zu's people took us, while we were playing in the river, during the festival when we were dancing. When I saw Zélie and Inan kiss and I couldn't place the feeling it gave me to see her with my brother, while I was with hers. 

Now it's clear.

It's not that kind of love I have for Tzain. I wanted to be in Inan's place to kiss her. I wanted Zélie to be in Tzain's place to dance with me. 

She's in my arms now, and I should be happy with that, the dark skin of her bare shoulder warm against my fingertips, and her breathing easy for the moment. I doubt it'll last. The dreams will catch up with her, and she'll wake sobbing, screaming while the knife sears into her back again and again, bleeding out her magic. 

That thought makes my blood run cold again. If not Zélie, whom we've all come to count on, then who will do the ritual? Lekan chose her. The Gods chose her. I have to believe there is a purpose to it. I have to believe that she can heal before we reach the island. 

Maybe the thought is silly but it comes suddenly, spurred by some wild hope: Perhaps I can help her heal. I know well enough that some wounds will leave scars deeper and darker than anything I can fathom, reaching down into minds and thoughts that twist them into dangerous, cruel things. I know it happened to Father. I know it happened to Inan, even though a fraction of me still wants to forgive him.

But I have to believe that Zélie is going to be different. That she will draw strength from her pain, the way I am drawing strength from Binta's blood staining the floor crimson just because she was forced to touch the scroll. Perhaps I can help heal Zélie, and for a moment my blood hums with the answer. 

I almost think that that is an echo of what magic might be, that hum. I'm not a maji, of course, but there is a surety that my idea is right, and not only because I find myself wanting her, even though I shouldn't disrupt her for-now peaceful sleep. If we need to fight tomorrow, and there is no reason to believe that we won't, we'll need all our strength.

It might be foolish to give in to my desire. My need. 

But I need to try. For Zélie. For Binta. For the maji. For Orïsha's sake. 

For my own.

I shake Zélie's shoulder, just lightly, and smile at her when her eyes blink open. Confused at first, wary, even afraid. Then her eyes, that beautiful silver, meet mine, and tension drains out of her like water into the sea. I hadn't even noticed how tense she was, even sleeping in apparent peace. 

"Hi," I say to her, softly, and bite my tongue to keep from feeling too foolish. 

Zélie's eyes never leave mine, and it'd be so easy to lose myself under her spell, if I'm not lost already. My heart beats high in my throat waiting for her answer. No way I am going to go ahead and take what I want from her without asking, not after all that has been taken from her already. 

My fingers linger over a curl of hair that has escaped her braids in sleep. "May I?" 

Zélie nods, and I brush it behind her ears, leaning down a little as I do. Our lips are now not far apart, but the breath to ask for permission fails me. I don't need it, though, because it's Zélie who initiates the kiss, shifting up on her elbows and bringing her face so close to mine there's no mistaking. 

I nod, willing to give her everything. 

It's lingering and gentle at first. Lips on lips, half-open, a rush of blood in my ears and my heart drumming wildly. Zélie is magic, and so even this - it's almost enough to undo me. 

I breathe out the beginnings of a moan against her mouth, and, emboldened by it, Zélie is the one who deepens the kiss. Over the taste of wine that she drank with dinner, her urgency makes for a new experience, swimming and heady and full of need. My body shivers with the rhythm that the ship is rocking us in, and I extricate myself from her kiss with difficulty, long enough to ask, speaking against her lips as if I can't bear to break contact completely, "I want to touch you. May I touch you?" 

And Zélie nods and claims my lips again. Her hand, which hung at her side before, curls into my hair, the other splays on my cheek, guiding me. Mine slips from her shoulder down her arm, astounded at the muscles under her skin, delighted. She has the grace of a lionaire, my Zélie, and the strength of one as well. In more than one respect. 

My fingers travel up over her dark skin again, back to her shoulder, under the hem of her nightclothes at the nape of her neck, teasing through another few short curls. "You are so beautiful," I mouth, kissing her. I'm not sure how much of it is comprehensible - just… I'm sure she knows, the way she relents under my hand and then arches into my touch as if my fingertips were doing their own magic.

Her own hands start wandering eventually, pulling me down alongside her on the bed. We lie facing each other, and there isn't any more need for speaking. Something in my heart hurts at the clear adoration of her gaze on me - no one has ever looked at me like that. Not even Binta. 

Zélie takes a deep breath, breathes out through her nose. Even so, it sounds a little sorrowful, as though she knows. Under my clothes, her fingers travel down my back, but before I can arch into them, they touch - my scar. That cruel slice along my spine where my brother struck me. 

I freeze. Zélie freezes, too, before threatening to move her hand away. But then I reach back and grasp her wrist, still rough from the majacite shackles. 

"No," I manage. "It doesn't hurt. It hasn't in years. Touch me?" It's halfway between plea and fact. I want her touch. I want her. I want the same healing from her that I'm trying to give, and if I allow it… perhaps permission will come more readily to her as well. 

Still, Zélie hesitates. Her fingers curl and uncurl against my skin under my nightclothes, resting for a moment after I release her. She deliberates, I can tell. She's fighting a battle in her mind, but this is one that she'll have to win on her own. And finally, when I'm beginning to get apprehensive, her hand uncurls, her index finger stretching out and running over the first ridge of skin. 

Nothing about my scar is tender except the memory of it, but I still gasp at her touch. It's warm, and I can almost imagine her hand bathed in light, the way Zu's were, the way Binta's were. Of course it isn't, not if they truly took away her magic, or her trauma buried it so deep that the ashê in her blood won't flow. It comes down to the same thing.

But her touch is warm, and grows warmer as she explores. I know that my lips part to keep breathing as she slides further and further down, eventually leaving the scar tissue behind, resting over the curve of my hip, something that no one before her ever thought beautiful, either. I love her for it in that moment, so much that my heart could burst, but it doesn't. The sensation is replaced by electricity stretching between us, our gazes, when she looks to me for permission to go further. 

I wet my lips and nod. It makes me nervous - of course I know my own body, but it is hard to love it if your own mother wastes no opportunity to tear it down. So this, too, is healing. The way Zélie's fingers dig into my flesh, cup my buttock. The gesture is almost funny, but it's so, so immense that all the laughter in me is replaced by my heart expanding, the heat of Zélie's skin on mine. She is moving her hand as though she has experience - perhaps she has, I never asked her, and really, it doesn't matter. 

She is here with me. She has reached my center now. Her hands are in my black curls there, both of them, giving delicious little tugs that drive me out of my mind with need. "Zélie, please. I…" 

"I need you." 

We both speak these words at once, and our mouths come together in a confirmation of it. My hands fly to cup her face, while she continues teasing me. Her hands caress my inner thighs, and I can feel myself growing wet with her ministrations, a little ashamed of it, but wanting it all, nonetheless. There is some force in my blood that won't be gainsaid. 

Zélie crossed the threshold of intimacy when she touched my scar. Even though she is at my most intimate place now, there is nothing I would keep from her, and she knows it. I slide my legs apart to give her more access to myself, a surrender, and she laughs against my mouth, making me gasp again when her teeth graze my lips. My throat tightens - not apprehension, just surprise at my own boldness, my own forwardness. 

When she slips a finger into me, finally, finally, I keen against her mouth, and she swallows all the noise of it. I can feel her lips curving up against mine, she pulls out, and does the same again. A lionaire playing with her prey, and her prey surrendering and helpless and wanting nothing more than to be devoured. Her thumb presses down on my clit next, and I see the stars at the edge of the world beneath my closed lids, and without thinking my hands fly to Zélie's shoulders, Zélie's back, to hold on for dear life. 

The ripples of the M rise under my hands, and her scars are still tender, I can tell from the way she flinches at my touch. 

I almost recoil - this, if anything, needs her permission. This, if anything, is the one place I should not have touched. The A my thumb sooths over. The two Gs, and this is where I feel Zélie's muscles tense and although she endures, doesn't pull away. I press my entire hand down as though I can will some of the healing of my old scar in to her new, fresh ones. The memory is something she'll always carry, but perhaps if I touch, if I manage to replace the horror of her torture? Perhaps that, too, will help. 

My fingers ghost over the O. Across the T. I suck in air to speak, to tell her that she is not a maggot, never has been and never will be, I know that the words are futile against a lifetime of abuse. Would it be any different if anyone told me Mother loved me? Would I believe them? 

I would not.

And so I decide to show her rather than relying on words. Although it means breaking contact with Zélie's fingers between my legs, and I nearly sob at the loss, I shift up, look at her. She looks back, unblinking and unreadable. 

"May I - " I begin but falter. She seems to know what I mean all the same, sits, and pulls her clothes over her head, leaving herself bare, naked to my gaze.

She is beautiful, stunning, breathtaking. I almost hesitate to undress in front of her, so ordinary, plump, unloved even by my own mother.

It takes courage. _Strike, Amari._ My mantra lends it to me, and I fling my clothes to the floor in a hasty motion, sit breathing heavily as though I've run a great distance. 

Zélie devours me with her eyes. A smile twitches on her lips, not one of mockery but adoration, need, gratitude. It turns my insides to water, and I smile back. 

Zélie. Zélie. Zélie. 

How did she become my whole world so quickly? 

We move to kiss again, languidly, our bodies moving skin to skin as though they were made to fit together. No more barriers. No more boundaries. Just us, touch and touch reciprocated, Zélie's hand that comes between my legs again, nudging my thighs apart with purpose, while I fumble to mirror her movements, my lack of experience with others showing plain as day. 

In the end it doesn't matter. Heat, liquid in my veins, flares like fire when she moans against me, hot breath on my lips as I quirk my fingers just so in the velvet of her heat, trying to return what Zélie does to me, how good - how amazing - she makes me feel.

In the end, we settle into a rhythm, exploration and desire melding into one and the same thing, and work each other to a climax that sweeps both of us away. I feel the tightening of Zélie's muscles around my fingers, and as her ecstasy rises, it flows into me like a river, like magic, like I imagine ashê must feel to a maji. I have no choice but to surrender to it, glowing with satisfaction and amazement - I did this to her, me - before the flood carries me along and I happily drown in it. 

After, we quietly lie in the warm silence together. Forgetting her scars, Zélie is basking in the afterglow, lying on her stomach, giving me the full view of her scars. I am not sure what it is, this display - is she making herself vulnerable, a display of trust, for me to share her pain? A reminder that for all we did tonight, I am still blood kin to the man who ordered her torture?

I want so badly to be worthy of her. To make her better. I can't look away. 

The brutal, fresh colour of the scars where they cut her open - where Father stood by and watched her being hurt, again and again, and with no respite in unconsciousness - I hide my rising tears, choke them down. Zélie doesn't need my weakness.

I look to her for permission once again, to kiss the M, soothe my lips over the A, the two Gs, the O and the T. As I do, and as Zélie relaxes beneath me out of rigidness, an unreadable emotion flickering on her face, resting her head face-down on her crossed arms, I finish with a kiss to the small of her back, the sweat-salt taste of her skin on my lips. 

She trusts me. I could sing.

It is the greatest gift of tonight, perhaps, to be trusted by her when it was my family who inflicted all this on her. I intend to prove myself worthy. When she brings magic back - when, not if - then I will become the Queen that Orïsha deserves, for maji and kosidán alike. 

This is our first step towards it. Towards healing.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Folie for her beta!


End file.
